Curly-whiskers and its linkage with tail-kinks in linkage group II of the mouse

Abstract

Curly-whiskers (cw) is a recessive gene which was found in 1958 by Mr C. J. W. Smith of the Chester Beatty Research Institute, London. It arose in a subline of the CBA/Cbi inbred strain. The first mutant animals were one male and one female in a litter of five. The two mutants were mated together and a sib-mated subline was continued from them in which 500 mice were bred, all of which were curly-whiskered. This established the mutant to be fully penetrant. Curly-whiskers resembles the hair-waving genes in causing waving of the vibrissae, but it has no obvious waving effect on the hairs of the coat. The coat texture is, however, slightly abnormal and Mr Smith noted also that on the CBA background there was an appreciable darkening of the coat colour. Homozygotes (cw/cw) are easily classifiable soon after birth by the curled vibrissae. Heterozygotes (+/cw) often have slightly curled vibrissae, and the gene is therefore not fully recessive; but the distinction between +/cw and +/+ could not be relied on, and in the linkage tests cw was treated as a recessive gene.